Assault Rifle Ban

Innocent people are being killed by assault rifles and think about the recent shootings in CT and CO which families lost their children. Congress and the Senate have to put their foot down on these dangerous weapons. The people that should own one is the people who served in our country and police officers.

American's and their love of death machines.

What else are assault rifles good for other than killing people. You do not hunt with an automatic weapon. And the arguement that banning them will not help reduce crime because criminals will have access to them anyways? Unless there is some criminal's R us store that i'm unaware of they are just as capable as me and you when it comes to obtaining a firearm.

Mass Shootings Prompt Firm Actions

Virginia Tech. Columbine. Gabby Giffords. Colorado Movie Theater. These names conjure up images of mass shootings that may have been preventable. Weapons used to kill dozens of people have been assault makes that have no use in street settings. The right to bear arms is for defending one's home. It only takes one bullet to kill someone. There is no need for assault weapons on American streets when a simple handgun will suffice to fend off someone trying to attack you.

Yes, banning assault weapons would curtail mass shootings

I believe that it is now time to consider banning assault weapons in the United States because there have been far too many shootings like the recent event in Aurora, Colorado that might have been prevented. It seems more and more common that the unstable people who commit these atrocious crimes are found to possess arsenals of these kinds of weapons. This has become a threat to the general public.

Assault Weapons Should Not Be Banned

Assault weapons should be legal because of the United States constitution. The second amendment specifically says we have the right to bear arms, and it puts no limit on what types of fire arms we are permitted to carry.The government can't protect anybody by banning automatic guns, the criminals still have access to them.

No, assault weapons should not be banned in the United States

If you look at the past, and even the present day in some ways, you will find that anytime something is banned, people will still find ways around it to get to that thing. Bans never work, they didn't work for alcohol in the 1920's, they haven't worked on drugs in the last 40 years, and they wouldn't work on assault weapons.

All bans do, and would ESPECIALLY do in the case of assault weapons, is make things even more dangerous, and people even more unsafe and at risk than they are with then legal. Those that truly wanted a gun, the actual criminals, would still find ways to get one, and would be able to do harm to people much much easier than if those people had the ability to defend themselves via arms. If you wanna raise the crime rate, just unarm the general public, it will spike guaranteed.

All a ban like this would do is hurt the responsible people, and allow the irresponsible people easy targets to attack. You wanna go after someone? Go after someone that abuses guns, that uses them for bad, not those who don't.

So no, assault weapons should not be banned in the United States at all.

They already are. Want to ban them twice?

By assault, I'll assume you mean 'fully-automatic', as in AK-47s, Uzis, and other rapid-fire weapons. If that's the case, then they are already incredibly difficult to get unless you're law enforcement or military. If you don't mean fully-automatic, and just mean 'any gun that looks scary', like an AR-15, then definitely no. (The AR in AR-15 means Armilite Rifle, just FYI.) The AR-15, just like pistols, is semi-automatic, meaning one-trigger pull = one bullet. Some use them for hunting, others for protection of property, and others still to ensure their liberty should any tyrannical leadership attempt to strip them of any rights.

Why do we want to punish law abiding citizens for the acts of 1% of gun owners?

We need to stop these killings and save innocent lives. An AWB doesn't have any impact on criminals who will disobey the law anyway like they disobey the law with everything else. It will effect law abiding citizens who have good morals, are mentally stable and responsible with their guns-the people we don't need to worry about-the people who are not involved in these killings. Let's focus in getting guns out of the hands of criminals and mentally ill people. Let's leave the law abiding, responsible, mentally stable people alone.

Assault weapons are no more dangerous than hunting rifles

A common misconception is that assault weapons are capable of firing in fully automatic. This is simply not true. Assault weapons are simply semi automatic firearms with cosmetic features that do not have any effect on the function of the weapon. Fully automatic firearms are already heavily regulated under federal law, and any machine gun made after 1986 is illegal for civilian possession. In addition, assault weapons are in fact less powerful than the majority of hunting rifles. The power of a gun is dependant on the caliber of the round it fires, not the way it looks. Reinstating this ban would be ridiculous and unnecessary.

Assault weapons are no more dangerous than hunting rifles

A common misconception is that assault weapons are capable of firing in fully automatic. This is simply not true. Assault weapons are simply semi automatic firearms with cosmetic features that do not have any effect on the function of the weapon. Fully automatic firearms are already heavily regulated under federal law, and any machine gun made after 1986 is illegal for civilian possession. In addition, assault weapons are in fact less powerful than the majority of hunting rifles. The power of a gun is dependant on the caliber of the round it fires, not the way it looks. Reinstating this ban would be ridiculous and unnecessary.